Developed to help bond market participants better understand trading trends in the fixed income markets, BondWave’s Data Lab has released its QMarksTM dashboards for the third quarter of 2025.
QMarks is a proprietary BondWave data set that powers its quarterly dashboards to cover all disseminated bond transactions using the regulatory-prescribed Prevailing Market Price methodology for corporate, municipal, agency, and 144A. QMarks belongs to a suite of other BondWave proprietary data sets, including QCurves, QTrades, and QScores.
Q3 2025 Observations:
Corporate Bond Market Trends
Source: BondWave QMarks
- Total par value traded shrank for the second quarter in a row after hitting an all-time high in Q1 2025.
- However, trade counts continued to grow as average trade size has shrunk.
- Mark-ups and mark-downs remained steady in Q3.
144A Bond Market Trends
Source: BondWave QMarks
- The 144A corporate market saw a similar decline in volumes to the registered market.
- Though the institutional nature of this market meant both trade counts and volumes decreased, leaving average trade size unchanged.
Municipal Bond Market Trends
Source: BondWave QMarks
- Municipal volumes pulled back from record Q2 levels.
- Q2 volumes were likely inflated due to ongoing concerns that municipal bonds would lose their tax-exempt status.
- That concern has eased somewhat leading to lower volumes.
Agency Bond Market Trends
Source: BondWave QMarks
- Agency volume bounced back from a weaker Q2.
- With par traded growing 16.6% in the quarter and total trades jumping 21.7% both figures approached record levels of activity.
The dashboards for the previous quarter referenced above are located here:
Last quarter: Q2 2025 Dashboards
About BondWave LLC
Founded in 2001, BondWave® is a financial technology company focused on fixed income solutions that empower our clients to more efficiently manage and grow their fixed income business. We serve a wide range of clients, including traders, compliance professionals, RIAs, and asset managers, who use our tools to provide a superior fixed income experience to their clients while supporting critical regulatory mandates and optimizing workflows.
Effi®, our Engine for Fixed Income, is the single platform through which we deliver all our solutions – providing intuitive dashboards and insights into every fixed income position and transaction to drive informed investment and business decisions. Effi’s capabilities include Portfolio Oversight, Trade Oversight, and curated Muni News. Our solutions are fueled by proprietary data sets that are developed using AI, machine learning technologies, and advanced data science.
